Community Design Centers

Movement – Various, USA

1960 onwards

Community Design Centers (CDCs) emerged in the context of the US
civil rights movement and the women's liberation movement of the
1950s and 1960s, generally providing technical and design advice to
communities who could otherwise not afford it. The political
climate at the time led planners, architects and designers to view
themselves as advocates for those excluded from the design process,
and to see urban planning not as a technical or bureaucratic issue
but as a political one. Paul Davidoff's concept of 'advocacy
planning' was influential in this characterisation of architecture
and urban planning as an engaged and participatory process of
positive social change. Within architecture in particular, this
concern was widespread and can be seen as a reaction to the
mechanised and technological tendencies of Modernism.

Whilst state funding was available at the beginning, by the
1970s the political climate had changed and public programmes were
withdrawn. Those groups who had initially relied on this now became
non-profit, voluntary organisations. Today, CDCs cover a broad
political spectrum, while some still have a radical politics,
others are closer to the neo-conservatism of movements such as New
Urbanism. CDCs share a common aim to engage local communities in
the design and development process. They do so through community
participation and mobilisation against imposed master-planning and
regeneration strategies.

One of the first CDCs was the Architects Renewal Committee of
Harlem (ARCH) founded in 1964, whose director was Max Bond
Jnr. The group came together to fight against proposals for a new
freeway in northern Manhattan, and later provided a range of
services from design and technical support to training and
information. Although some of its members were architects, others
included a lawyer, editor and community organisers. They were
associated with the Black Power movement and much of their work was
concerned with the alleviation of poverty in the ghettos. ARCH was
funded by grants and received contracts from various community
organisations.

The climate of the 1960s also had a major influence on
educational institutions resulting in many CDCs being affiliated to
universities, such as the Yale Building
Project at Yale University, Pratt Center for
Community Development at the Pratt Institute, the
Community Development
Group at North Carolina State University and the
Detroit Collaborative
Design Center at the University of Detroit-Mercy. These
organisations combined teaching and training for students with a
service to the wider community; pedagogically process was
emphasised over finished product, and an increasing importance
placed on practical experience.

Whether independent or affiliated to an educational institution,
CDCs question traditional roles and power relations, such as those
between the architect and user or student and teacher. Architecture
and design are viewed as tools for an ethical intervention in the
built environment and the transformative potential of architectural
practice is underlined through a participative approach that works
for those least able to afford the services of a traditional
architect.

Quotes

'We are concerned with changing the architect's role. We
envision a changefrom the architect representing the rich patron to
the architect representing the poor, representing them as
individuals and as an interest group.'
- Architects' Renewal Committee in Harlem, 1968, quoted in, Tucker,
Priscilla, 'Poor Peoples' Plan', The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Bulletin, New Series, 27 (1969): 265.